Larry Finck denied parole for second time in '06.

Finck denied parole for second time in ’06

By PATRICIA BROOKS ARENBURG Staff Reporter
http://herald.ca/Search/546650.html

Larry Finck has been denied parole again.

The National Parole Board held a hearing Monday at Atlantic Institution in Renous, N.B., for Mr. Finck, the father at the centre of a 2004 police standoff in Halifax over his infant daughter.

The parole board found Mr. Finck unfit to release on either day or full parole, but the reasons for the decision weren’t available Monday. A written report is expected to be released today.

Monday’s hearing was scheduled after Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Charles Haliburton ordered that it be held in response to a court application by Mr. Finck.

The National Parole Board and Correctional Service Canada applied on Dec. 5 for a stay of proceedings to postpone the judge-ordered parole hearing until their appeal could be heard.

Justice Thomas Cromwell of the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal dismissed the application at a Dec. 7 hearing at the Halifax Law Courts. He said the applicants didn’t file notice in time and arrangements weren’t made to bring Mr. Finck from northern New Brunswick for the hearing. Also, Justice Cromwell wrote, even if "the judge may have erred in making the order he did," the applicants would suffer no irreparable harm if the hearing went ahead as scheduled.

This is the second time this year that Mr. Finck, serving a 4½-year sentence for his role in a 67-hour standoff and another four months for assaulting a fellow patient at a Dartmouth hospital, was denied parole.

In March, The Chronicle Herald reported that he was refused because he didn’t "acknowledge his crimes, did not have an acceptable release plan, did not take psychiatric counselling and refused to take courses that would improve his conflict resolution skills."

The May 2004 standoff began when police came to his mother’s Shirley Street house with a court order to remove his baby daughter from the house. The longest standoff in Halifax history ended when Mr. Finck and his wife, Carline VandenElsen, with their daughter strapped to her chest, walked out of the house carrying his dead mother on a stretcher. Mona Finck had died of natural causes. The baby was immediately seized by authorities.

Ms. VandenElsen, who is serving a 3½-year sentence at the Nova Institution for Women in Truro, was also denied parole earlier this year.

( pbrooks@herald.ca)

NO JUSTICE- NO VOTES!

MEDIA RELEASE, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NO JUSTICE=NO VOTES!
World Ambassadors for Parents’ Civil Rights
Canadian Civil Rights Association
1061 Mines Rd. Falmouth, NS B0P 1L0 Canada
http://www.stopthetorture.info
Call Now. 902.798.5267
or email us at cbrauer@lincsat.com










Mona-Clare Finck/VandenElsen, 5 mo old, breast feeding
infant seized by armed force from her anguished parents.

Campaign For Justice!

Falmouth, NS. May 25, 2006. Husband and wife team, Connie Brauer and Vic Harris, civil rights activists for justice for families, are launching a campaign for justice just in time for the NS Election candidates. Will they stand up for truth and justice or won’t they? Are there any honest people left in Canada? No Justice = No Votes, has launched today.

May 21, 2006 was the two year anniversary of the worst case of Charter violations and persecution in NS history, for a Nova Scotia family, by the Nova Scotia Government.

2 years ago, The Halifax Children’s Aid, with the assistance of the riot gear, machine gun toting police, abducted a nursing infant baby girl from her parents, at gun point, in what was known as the Halifax Standoff. The approval for this monstrous act of inhumanity came from the Supreme Court of NS. No proof of criminal negligence was ever presented to the judge, Debra Smith. She approved the apprehension application, anyway. Why? How is it possible that the very court that is mandated to uphold The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, as the ultimate law of the land, can steadfastly violate those very Charter Rights and issue an apprehension order, without any criminal evidence or charges of any kind? How can this happen?

To date, no one has been arrested for this criminal atrocity, except the parents who did everything they could to protect their baby from abduction. This family did what any normal family would do under the circumstances. They refused to give up their baby! They defended themselves. What happened to the right to defend your family in clear and present danger? Someone fired a warning shot into the air. For that the parents were arrested and incarcerated for 4 years.. The Gestapo stole Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck’s baby and they get arrested! How is that possible? The government of NS took their child, their home, lost their grandmother to an early death during the standoff, incarcerated them, refused bail, refused parole, denied their appeal to get their baby back and still claims unaccountability! What Charter Rights?

No public inquiry, no police inquiry and no Halifax Children’s Aid investigation has been done. The CAS have unlimited and unreasonable powers to invade a private home and seize children. No evidence required. CAS is a registered CHARITY and government AGENCY. How can a charity and a government funded agency have so much power? No birth certificate was ever prepared by the IWK. Why? Folks, these people are funded by our tax dollars! Are we going to allow this? We demand full disclosure now! We want justice!

Brauer and Harris have created a list of 100 reasons for a public inquiry. The politicians are covering this up. Paid by our tax dollars. Why? The Charter violations are too numerous to ignore. How? No Charter Rights here! The arrogance and indifference of the past and present government officials is astounding! The ex NS Premier, John Hamm and the new Premier, Rodney MacDonald have refused to investigate. Why? People need to die in NS. before a public inquiry is called. Where is the new Justice Minister, Murray Scott? Continuing the cover up, that’s where. Why? We asked them. No positive response. No public inquiry. Why? 52 NS MLA’s who are now seeking your votes, people, have not demanded a public inquiry. Why? No one has resigned. Why? Not one person has been charged for the forceful abduction and horrendous child abuse of this innocent little baby. Why? What hell is she living through now? Where is she? Where? The Halifax CAS has completely destroyed this family and this baby girl. She will never know her parents, her grandmother, her siblings and other relatives. She is traumatized for life. She is facing endless years of therapy. How can we keep such an agency open? Why isn’t this agency shut down?

We demand a full public inquiry into not only this government child abduction and the court process which allowed this to happen, but all the children who were abducted from their parents in NS. Every last one of them and there are many.

The Minister of Community Services, David Morse hasn’t resigned or been fired. Why? Why isn’t he in jail? It’s his Dept. that allowed this to happen. Why are tax payer’s paying for child abductions? Since when is government endorsed child abduction acceptable in court? This political cover up isn’t going away. It stank two years ago and it still stinks today and will continue to stink until we get answers and justice!

Why haven’t there been any arrests? Why aren’t Larry Finck and Carline VandenElsen free? Why was Carline VandenElsen denied parole on May 24,06 two years after her child was abducted? What do they expect from this mother? What more can she give up? What more can they take from her? Real criminals serve less time in prison. Carline VandenElsen and Larry Finck are victims of a huge political coverup. They have lost everything! They have absolutely nothing left. Where is the baby? How many other children have been abducted from their families by Children’s Aid? We need answers! We need a free (no fee) and accessible Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. We have the right to know. No more cover ups! We demand justice! Join us! Now! Your child could be next! Then what would you do? Who you gonna call? Where are you pretty baby? We want you home. Now! We want Larry and Carline home, now. Reunited with their baby!
What are you doing about this, Mr. and Ms. Candidate? Don’t just blather during an election, Stand up for justice, like a real man or woman. What are you doing about this, Mr. Prime Minister? You are responsible too.

Pay attention. We the people, will no longer vote in any election where Justice and Charter Rights are not the #1 Priority. If NS and Canada is to be safe, then they must stand up for Justice and the Charter Rights that all people in Canada are supposed to have under The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Show me!

Connie Brauer and Vic Harris




NO JUSTICE=NO VOTES!
World Ambassadors for Parents’ Civil Rights
Canadian Civil Rights Association
1061 Mines Rd. Falmouth, NS B0P 1L0 Canada
http://www.stopthetorture.info
Call Now. 902.798.5267 (9-8 AST)
or email us at cbrauer@lincsat.com
Donations for Justice accepted.



Carline VandenElsen, Larry Finck, siege, children's aid, Halifax,NS, Halifax standoff, human rights, constitutional rights, charter rights, police force, excessive police force, ns government, parents, child abduction, children and babies, civil rights violations,
CAS, Dept of Community Services, David Morse, John Hamm, Rodney MacDonald, Murray Scott, Attorney General of NS, Elizabeth Whelton, Barbara McPherson, Canadian Civil Rights Association, The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, Connie Brauer and Vic Harris, criminals, crimes against humanity, no justice, No votes

Siege of Shirley Street: two years later, still no answers

seige, children's aid, halifax, standoff, human rights, constitutional rights, charter rights,
police force, excessive force, ns government, parents, child abduction, children and babies,

Siege of Shirley Street: two years later, still no answers By HEATHER LASKEY- Chronicle Herald, May 5/06 Two years have passed since Halifax’s "siege of Shirley Street." Two years this month since the police seizure of a five-month-old infant, the death of her grandmother, and the arrest of her parents. Since that time, there has been a plethora of court proceedings – criminal trials, family court hearings, decisions and appeals. The parents are in prison and the toddler – as far as we know – is still in the custody of the Children’s Aid Society. It was the parents’ refusal to relinquish her to the CAS shortly after her birth which had led to the police action. There is still unease among many people in this area about the use of a militarized police/SWAT team during the May 2004 events in what appeared to be a convenient opportunity to rehearse for a possible terrorist strike on the city. Many of us are also uneasy about the opaque powers of the CAS. The CAS is a quasi-private, government-funded, not-for-profit organization which, though well-intentioned, is in effect answerable only to its board. This absence of public accountability is a comment you will hear even from other social workers. No formal explanation has been given to the public for why the CAS wanted the baby removed from her parents: "Client confidentiality" is the mantra used to hide behind this wall of silence. As far as can be established, the apparent reason the newborn baby came to CAS attention was that her parents, Carline Vanden Elsen and Larry Finck, had previously run afoul of the legal system in Ontario by abducting children of their previous relationships. Neither had been accused of neglecting or abusing these children, and there was no suggestion before or after she was seized that the five-month-old nursing infant had been neglected or abused. But it was clear that her parents had antagonized authorities by dissing the legal system and the CAS in Ontario, as they were to do here in Nova Scotia. Their behaviour may have been intensely annoying, block-headed and eccentric. It was, however, no justification for the state to condemn their baby to the damaging uncertainties of a childhood in the foster-care system. (One year ago, at the age of 17 months, she was already in her second placement, and it was officially recorded that she had been upset by her move, at the age of 12 months, from her first placement. We do not know what her present situation is). As for the siege itself – the violent means employed to seize the baby were profoundly inappropriate. They could easily have resulted in her being injured or killed. They did lead to the death from heart failure of her grandmother, Mona Finck. The weaponry with which the Halifax police and the RCMP (according to their own testimony) were armed included semi-automatic sub-machine guns, and Taser guns. There was also the battering ram used in the middle of the night in a residential street against the home containing the five-month-old baby, her parents and frail grandmother. When the couple emerged after nearly three days with the body of Mrs. Finck on a stretcher, there was a melee in which a knife was used to cut a Snugli – with the infant in it! – from off the mother. Then a Taser gun was used to force her to remove her arms from under her body when she was lying on the sidewalk. It would have seemed reasonable if the people responsible for ordering the attack had been charged with endangering life, but even calls for a public inquiry were ignored by the minister of justice. The Halifax police promised that there would be a formal review of the events. Two years on, and despite questions from Mayor Peter Kelly, there is still silence. There is a similar silence from the Mounties. These are not healthy signs in a democracy. Last summer, a group of people, who wanted the whole business exposed to the air, got together to push for the inquiry. We wanted the public to be told what evidence of actual or potential harm had been presented to the Family Court to justify ordering the baby be taken from her parents, and why massive force had been used. The informal group included five independent and experienced journalists (Stephen Kimber, Kim Kierans, Ian Porter, Dulcie Conrad and myself) as well as Ray Kuszelewski, who had been Larry Finck’s Legal Aid lawyer; Joyce Dempsey, a neighbour of the Fincks; and Susan Stuttard, a retired professional. We have been supported in our demands by a wider group of citizens, from engineers, nurses and lawyers to professors and social workers, all of them equally disturbed by the behaviour of police and government-associated agencies in these events. To quote a letter to this newspaper from Winifred Milne, the retired director of social services for the Nova Scotia Hospital, "a climate has been created which may put subsequent vulnerable children and families at further risk." None of us should forget a lesson of both Mount Cashell and the Indian residential schools: You cannot always trust the state to protect children; sometimes it can be the instrument of their destruction. It’s time we had a careful look at how we are dealing with our children deemed in need of state protection, and ask how we could do it better. One major step forward would be the creation of the post of an independent children’s advocate, a suggestion made to government by a group including Mrs. Milne – in the early 1960s! It’s not too late to call or write to MLAs or to the minister of justice, requesting that a public inquiry be set up into the events around that baby’s seizure in May 2004 by the RCMP and Halifax police. And residents of HRM could write to or call their councillors, requesting that they push for the release of the police report. It’s the very least that is owed to the late Mona Finck, to her little granddaughter, and to all the children who may be taken into care. Heather Laskey’s book The Children of the Poor Clares: The Story of an Irish Orphanage, published in Ireland in 1985, was the first to expose the abuse of children in church-run institutions. She also wrote and broadcast about the child immigration movement from Britain to Canada.

seige, children's aid, halifax, standoff, human rights, constitutional rights, charter rights,
police force, excessive force, ns government, parents, child abduction, children and babies,